Owning-Up
Friday, July 27, 2007
Surrealist and jazzman George Melly’s uncompromising, witty autobiography. He also wrote two other memoirs of his earlier experiences of childhood and the navy: 'Scouse Mouse' and 'Rum, Bum and Concertina' and the trilogy is now a Penguin Classic.
His last biography, about his then approaching 80th birthday 'Slowing Down' is also published by Penguin.
Goodtime George. That's what they called him: Goodtime George. I've been reading his first book of autobiography on and off for a year or so. Great stuff. I nearly saw his last concert but forgot to go. He said it would be his last tour. Sigh.
Temperance Seven member and Jazz Record Restorer John R.T. Davies Dies. In this obituary is quoted a long description of his working methods.
Don Arden - Intimidating rock impresario. His methods were less pleasant.
Bad news from Manchester: Tony Wilson dies of cancer. He always impressed me by being quietly-spoken.
The Sea and Cake have made a 'rock album' - sounds like "krautrock loungecore" Sounds intriguing. Rock Cake I really hope they are as good as they are described.
Rip and Goodbye: "the complete dissolution of my library of compact discs". Many comments.
My All Time Favorite Prog Rock Recordings - chapter 39. Not mine, someone else's.
The shirt that Wreckless Eric wore on the cover of 'Reconnez Cherie' has turned up. His news section is better than most people's blogs.
Fake Steve Jobs on Robin Trower: Today's Music Depresses Me.
British rock fans of a certain age have copies of ZigZag magazine knocking about in their attic. Mine are in what I call our library. They smell great. Since 1996, rocklist.net has been putting old polls from ZigZag online. Essential Rock Albums.
Always sad when someone that everyone has heard of dies in obscurity. It happened to Mike Sammes but luckily Jonny Trunk was on hand to save some of his treasures: Music for Biscuits.
Trunk records are pretty good; also worthy for their excellent and lengthy sleevenotes are those other musical magpies RPM, for instance 'Magpie - 20 Junkshop Pop Ads & Themes' contains Andrew Bown's theme music to 'Ace of Wands'.
I've got some Joe Meek and Pet Clark compilations from RPM. Essential these days to get the dates and cover art for iTunes, so this Petula Clark discography comes in handy. Great graphics and some moody expressions from Pet.
Big Al Davies' Treemo channel.
Kevin Ayers' MySpace page:
This myspace site is presented by Kevin Ayers' management. Kevin is aware of myspace and thinks it is very cool, but he doesn't have a computer let alone an internet connection. He wishes people still sent telegrams. He is very touched by the kind messages left on his page and that there is still space in music collections for his efforts.Also among my very few friends on MySpace are Foul House because my friend's daughter is the singer. They are great live and should make an album ASAP.
The loudness wars: Why is there so much variation in volume in my music collection?
jTunes "The Insanely Great Songs Apple Won't Let You Hear."
Pitchfork.
The label Repertoire are putting out some nice editions on CD. I just got a triple disc of all the Pretty Things singles.
Vinyl Vulture: Record shops in London. The Digger's Guide to London.
Desmond Briscoe, Radiophonic Workshop founder, 1925-2007. Musique concrète and diegetic sounds.
Making Flippy Floppy - what a silly name for a music blog. How about a sensible name like Wibbly, or monkeyfunk, or Bubblegum Machine, which posts two wacky mp3s each week. Adult material such as emotion can be found in The Lefsetz Letter. Lefsetz also points us to Jeff Beck's 'Led Boots' at http://music.msn.com/crossroads which got me right there.
I don't know why people call Revelations: a musical anthology for Glastonbury Fayre "legendary" because I've got a copy downstairs. It's out on CD now, which is handy but it won't sound as good or have such an elaborate cover and inserts.
In Quest of Absolute Fidelity: The Saga of the Black CD – Finding Black Gold!
Uh-oh - or, as it says here: WOW: CBS Acquires Last.fm for $280 Million which is a shame because I've been on last.fm since it started as Audioscrobbler. You can bet they are going to screw it up somehow, like Yahoo did with LaunchCast and mailing lists and now Flickr.
Suzi Quatro unzipped. I never knew '48 Crash' was about the male menopause.
Music blog by Pliable: On an Overgrown Path. Good for classical music and exposes the fools who think the BBC or the Proms are "brands".
Richard Godwin admits he can't follow opera plots. I like that.
A musical pantheon: The desert island challenge: 24 records.
Great mp3s! The Barry Gray Music Sampler.
Motorhead Blogger.
Back in the groove: young music fans ditch downloads and spark vinyl revival.
Vinyl Vulture.
Playlist for those agonizing over their iTunes playlists - like me. ω 10:46:00 PM.
lit. links (revised)
Sunday, July 08, 2007
A short story by Herman Melville: Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street - is it simply absurd? Wikipedia describes the plot, so better read the thing first: the story can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg.
Henry James: The Lesson of the Master. Short but massive.Guardian Unlimited Books of the Year 2006 chosen by various critics and writers like Billy Bragg and Simon Callow.
Acquired: The London Collection. Packed with facts. Good fun. Keep in the loo to weigh down those old copies of Fortean Times and keep the splashes off your Schulz and Schott's.
Joanne Harris has written a childrens' book called Runemarks about "Norse gods at the end of the world".
Nigel Hamilton in his Biography: A Brief History calls Woolf's 'Orlando' "a spoof biography of Vita Sackville-West", which it is.
Still available: The Planet Suite by my old school chum Allen Ashley. Also don't miss his 'Urban Fantastic' and 'Somnambulists'. OhMyNews recently published an interview with Allen: Writing, Perseverance and Shaggy Dog Stories.
Mike Moorcock has a story in Kiss the Sky: Fiction & Poetry Starring Jimi Hendrix edited by Richard Peabody. I think the story was in a Hawkwind tour programme thirty years ago.
The music of science is Michael Moorcock's review of graphic novel 'Horace Dorlan' which, unlike its two predecessors, has some text. It sounds remarkable. Watchman meets Kafka.
'Nova Swing' by M John Harrison; Gollancz, £16.99, reviewed by Brian McCluskey.
Design: Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte. 3D into 2D.
Vampires meet modern TV: Fangland by John Marks.
In the Spectator, Matthew d'Ancona suggests that Prime Minister Gordon Brown's new book Courage: Eight Portraits is a suitable "page-turner" for the beach on your holiday. Not me, I'm going to Iceland. He also says the book provides a ninth portrait of Gordon himself. Sounds interesting.
The Open Library aims to include every book "our planet’s cultural legacy" and make them all available on the interwebnet.
SciFaiku, er, science fiction haikus.
NPR: Under the Radar: Books Not to Miss.
The official blog of Penguin Books UK: The Penguin Blog.
At last! Leading from the front page - six feminist magazines launch in the UK.
...when they launched their first issue last summer she had become particularly aware of a "massive wave of crap women's magazines. We thought we probably had something more interesting to say." Although the magazine didn't start out as a feminist project, it quickly became one - a natural result of trying to create a publication for women that didn't follow the usual mould.
Geek to Live: Turn your blog into a book, part II.
Something for all bloggers to aspire to, ha ha The world's longest diary.
The Biggest Geek and the SF List is one reader's list of significant genre novels. I disagree with most of it but the comments below are interesting.
English lessons via podcast from the Grammar Girl "a quick and dirty success". Librarian chic.
Guardian Unlimited Books. Book blogs at The Guardian.
Free books! Digital ones. eBooks from Adobe. They seem to be quite legible on-screen.
Semantic Soup is a Flickr group devoted to recording misuse of the English language. ω 3:50:00 PM.
21st Century Gizmo: iPhone
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Dropping a battered plastic divider by my groceries on the checkout till, I realized how mainstream Apple is these days. The divider carried an advert for iTunes vouchers. When a relative buys me a voucher I shall know that Apple is the only game in town. Must drop more hints.Why is Apple growing so quickly? It's all due to design and I want to explain what that is, why Apple is good at it and what an iPhone is, without sounding too much like a fanboy.
As if their online store isn't enough, Apple is the fastest growing retailer in the USA taking $1bn a quarter in their expensively appointed shops (more profit per square foot than Tiffanys!), only a few years after Gateway — a manufacturer of PC clones — abandoned their chain of stores.
The "bricks and mortar" shops were stringently redesigned after realizing the need to address users' needs such as music or film, so Apple abandoned their initial design where the shop was conventionally laid out by product type. This all happened in a mock-up and delayed the opening of their first store by months.
CEO Steve Jobs said Apple's high street stores were put in place for the iPhone, also that Apple had to lose its dependency on large retailers with little knowledge of Mac OS X.
Apple apply design rules to their operating system so it keeps out of the way and looks as elegant as the hardware. They also make their own applications which rule some market niches like online music, via iTunes and iTune's dedicated hardware aka the iPod, dictating their one-price policy to the music industry. They also dominate music production (no latency on a Mac), graphics and art, taking in magazine and poster production and video editing either with Avid or their own range of Pro applications. For instance editing video with soundtracks using iMovie is possible without reading a manual: intuitive functions belaying sophistication behind the scenes. It's also fun to make your own music using GarageBand, a product so gorgeously straightforward yet powerful it could only exist on an Apple.
These kinds of products and the layout of the stores reflect the Apple philosophy of seeing their users as producers (active) rather than consumers (passive). They create rather than watch.
Apple's design process follows the precept 'form follows function'. Apple keeps it strictly simple. For instance: the iPod. The design of this is brilliant not because it looks sexy — the appearance is a by-product of the design process — but rather because you can hold it in one hand and scroll up and down the lists and menus and notes only using your thumb. Jobs and co. sweated over the onscreen menu, simplifying and reducing it to the minimum. Physically there is no surplus material, no ridges or stickers; there's just what you need and that's it, so no black lines or gaps around buttons that are already a different colour and texture, and so on. It's hard to convey why anyone should want one, especially to people who weren't planning to transfer their music collection to a digital format, until they think about being able to access any track they like immediately, anywhere. All your music in your pocket. Just employ the opposable digit. Also the OCD and retentive folk amongst us can scan the cover art in (whenever iTunes doesn't have it) or program smart playlists in iTunes that flow into each other.
So to sum up: design is for hardware and software. Design is all-encompassing: beauty and efficiency comes from the way each component fulfils its purpose and fits into the overall structure. Executing design with style is art.
Apple's competitors' philosophy seems to be to build something just about good enough and sell it cheap. No need to delight the customer with refinements or to think about the user experience and how the programs could integrate... maybe they think they have enough of a captive corporate market, or habitual customers who only buy what they know. (Hello Aaron!) But Dell could never be like Apple. It is harder to be restrained than to add more features in order to give the impression of good value, while building down to a price. Dell's marketing department prefers that. It's also easier to use focus groups than trust to judgment.
The iPhone? It has Mac OS X. It can do things the iPod can, like photos, notes and calendars, or play music and video. It's a phone too, easier to use than any other phone. Most importantly, it has Mac OS X, and that is what differentiates it from other small portable devices. This means it can run widgets or exactly the same email or web browser program one finds on a laptop or desktop, or amazing new apps like Maps with search and live traffic conditions. So it can not only replace a cellphone, smartphone, iPod and maybe laptop, but also satnav? And imagine how well it will sync with all the personal data on your Mac. It is not a cellphone where each button always has the same function. It will regularly have new software. I believe it is a new class of device, namely a handheld computer. Obviously I can't get mine soon enough.
Many developers have been hoping to get their applications on the iPhone, but Apple has not yet released a Software Development Kit and shows no indication of doing so, however apps can be written with HTML/AJAX such as the widgets/gadgets you may already have on your desktop PC. Four examples have already appeared: a Twitter messaging client (now called Hahlo), a Digg client, an AIM chat client, and a shopping list called OneTrip which is quite good and reminds me of an app I once tried on the bulkier Apple Newton, which leads me to wonder whether Jarvis Cocker will finally abandon his Newton for the iPhone.
I'm already planning to download the shopping app and replace the options with my own and then host it on my site. I'm also thinking of writing a randomly rude quiz app, for which the interface is perfect.
The "soft" keyboard of the iPhone is the only doubt that I have at the moment, before the launch. I'm hoping to write rubbish like this while travelling on trains. Sure, I could use a BlackBerry or Hiptop or Palm or eMate, but I don't like their tiny keypads or predictive texting. The iPhone has a proper dictionary, like a laptop, but the keyboard is on the touchscreen so it will not have the physical feedback that one is used to when pressing an actual key. Apple say that when you learn to trust it you will fly. Initial reports suggest that this can take a day or two. I do hope so. I am reassured by the speed of Steve Jobs typing in his demo: "Sounds great! See you there" in 15 seconds. It would be fun to send grotesquely verbose emails or SMS text messages, something I could not attempt on a cellphone or most smartphones. Actually I can't even find the text function on my current phone — an ancient Alcatel — unless I have unread texts. The iPhone has been called a God Machine and the new It Object. It is, I believe, the first truly 21st century device. After it launches on the 29th, Apple should take over the smartphone market and some of the cellphone market.
To learn more about the iPhone, I recommend watching Steve Job's keynote in which he introduces it as a three-in-one device. See how he mocks other phones and how difficult it is to make calls on them. Also see the ads. Go through the Apple/iPhone pages and view the many short movies. Regular Apple web sites like MacSurfer have iPhone news as well as the iPod sites like ilounge and iPhone Hacks, the iPhone being a widescreen iPod. Gadget sites like Electronista.There are also dedicated iPhone websites started by third parties: iPhonic, iPhoneworld and iPhone Atlas from the MacFixIt people.
Some articles:
Technology Review: The Secret of Apple Design by Daniel Turner (registration required)
iPhone and the Future by Frank Levinson
The iPhone keeps its cool secret by Mike Rogoway
The Unofficial Apple's Consumer Strategy
Entering iPhone Era: Marking Time in Mobile by Tomi T. Ahonen
Sun Tries to Jump on iPhone Bandwagon with jPhone by Daniel Eran
How Do You Like Them Sandwiches?Roughly Drafted: Tech: The iPhone, PDAs, Mobiles, and VoIP Telephony
Apple is a Quiznos. It has the stores, employees, recipes, product variety, past success, reputation, and demand.
Suddenly it's obvious that the value of the iPhone isn't just that it has a clever grid of squarish icons on the front, or that it is a thin phone, but that it is an integrated product and part of an overall successful business.
The most uninformed iPhone article yet: Apple's Hype Phone by Laura Goldman
Apple's iPhone Rocks the Cell Phone Industry by Paul Carton.
January 2007: Analysis: iPhone will change the world "iPhone is a phone media centric device that confuses categories"
Labels: Apple, design, iPhone, rave
ω 7:24:00 PM.Hawkwind - Do Not Panic
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Friday - BBC Four.
Only 38 years after the legendary 'Sonic Assassins', aka the 'Psychedelic Warlords' better known as Hawkwind formed, the BBC finally get them in their viewfinders, well, most of them. I think they filmed this documentary a couple of years ago. My mate Al, who performed with Hawkwind on some London gigs, has postponed his holiday to watch it.
Band-leader Dave Brock is not included in the programme; this article by film-maker Tim Cumming explains why: They're Still Feeling Mean (and They're Still Feeling Mean) even after all these years.
Hm, I see all the pages on the Hawkwind website have disappeared. Perhaps I ought to rejoin the BOC-L mailing list to find out what's happening... what people thought of the doco... or shall I just just put some music on and have a sandwich. Yes.
Michael Moorcock and his friends discuss the programme on his Miscellany site, and the programme itself is on YouTube: Do Not Panic.
Hawkwind: Do Not Panicω 10:29:00 AM.
Told for the first time, the inside story of Hawkwind, one of Britain's wildest acid rock bands. They emerged from the Ladbroke Grove underground at the end of the 1960s, trailing the radicalism of the counter-culture in their wake, and have been a direct influence on punk, metal, dance and rave - as well as pioneering multimedia rock shows with their legendary Space Ritual tour, and leading the free festival scene from its birth to its apogee at the last Stonehenge in 1984.
Unruly, anarchic, and often at war with themselves, Hawkwind are one of the last great outsider bands. Although the testimony of guitarist and founder member Dave Brock isn't present, the film includes interviews with some of the band's enduring legends, including bassist Lemmy, writer Michael Moorcock, founder members Terry Ollis, Nik Turner and Mick Slattery, former managers Doug Smith and Jeff Dexter, leading rock critic Nick Kent and broadcaster and super-fan Matthew Wright. Strong language.
I Hate Microsoft Windows
Monday, January 08, 2007
Having to use Windows is horrible, there's no scripting and - but before I start moaning, let's look at what's just happened and then hint at the solution. I've been using Windows for an hour. There are a few problems, some minor usage quirks like hitting return after entering my username to login and getting an error message, instead of the cursor moving down to the password field, and some major incompatibilties like an inability to cut and paste tables from Word into Outlook. (Why is an email program called Outlook?) Come on, Office is supposed to be a suite. The first few columns of the table do not get transferred. The table cell does not resize so that I can type the numbers in. Suddenly sending a helpful email to my boss becomes a major challenge.Printing is a big problem in Windows. I made a selection by dragging the cursor across some text. CTRL/P. (Why use the CTRL key on the corner of the keyboard, further away fom the letters?) The print dialogue had the selection option greyed out! I thought I could get around this madness by only printing page 37. Stupid Windows then printed the entire document.
(That reminds me: why are there different print dialogues? If I want to print an image from Internet Explorer I do not get an option to scale the image to the paper, but if I print from Photo Editor then I do. And that's another thing: the program is called 'Microsoft Photo Editor', not 'Photo Editor'. Why does Microsoft always do this?)
"Hardware Threshold Alert: HP Client Manager has detected that your disk space threshold is below 22 percent" (sic). Leaving aside the neologism and that I do not want HP to manage me, I do not wish to be informed about thresholds. Usage, maybe. Maybe they meant usage and wrote threshold.
"Java (TM) updates are ready to download." Great, I love Java. I kicked off the install but "the NTVDM CPU encountered an illegal instruction". What does that mean - can't they write it in English like on other operating systems? Another annoyance is that it is not possible to copy/paste the error text from the alert (which also contains long numbers) in order to pass it on to support, so I imagine most people won't bother. As with the Outlook problem above, Windows has put obstacles in my way so that the job does not get done.
The attitude of Windows users is: don't worry about it. I can't understand this, coming from the Mac community. We would scream and holler on Macfixit.com or the Apple forums if there were similar problems with the Mac OS and Apple would have put it right years ago. Yet the Windows users, millions of them, just put up with this crap. It never gets fixed. Their workflow is interrupted and has extra steps. Weird. They need a web site. ω 9:14:00 PM.
The London Underground
Sunday, December 31, 2006
District Dave is a tube driver with an extensive web site.Going Underground has a blog which is great, and much more up-to-date. Annie Mole is responsible for these, you may have seen her on the BBC's tube night (great links here!), in which we saw the caring folk of the Lost Property Office. If you did, you'll be pleased to know that the family who left the ashes of a relative on a train have been tracked down: Underground Urnie found.
Book: Roberts, M.J. (2005). Underground Maps after Beck. Harrow Weald: Capital Transport Publishing.
London Underground Railway Society.
Tubeprune is not updated any more, but has lots of information on the London Underground railway system. ω 6:48:00 PM.
Love is here
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
All you need is Love, the new Beatles album.
This can't wait. If you have a hi-fi you need Love. Love is all you need. If you have an intimate knowledge of their music you will especially enjoy the mashups and segues.
Rock'n'Reel magazine has been relaunched. As they are giving away 5 CDs with a subscription in Europe, I couldn't resist this as a Christmas present to myself.
And while I'm on the Subject of Music... is by a man with a lot of CDs. And speaking of albums, I've been collecting them since 1974, so it was a big shock for me when Virgin removed its range of vinyl records from the Oxford Street megastore in London. Suddenly I didn't know what was out there anymore, without the browser bins to riffle through. It is as if iTunes were to vanish now. In 1984 the music industry promised us all the titles would come out on CD eventually, but half of them never did. Ah yes, I remember music... in the interests of bringing it back, here is one solution: Lost in Music.
Brian Eno's Neroli album is on iTunes for only £1.49! More low prices like this please.
Arthur Chisnall, Eel Pie Island promoter, 1925-2006. A good read. He also promoted independent thought, shortly to be made illegal.
The Novelty Rock Emporium is one of many blogs who put MP3 files of old records online, often sourcing music from junk stores. I love them. Some other good ones are Boot Sale Sounds currently featuring Michael Bentine and Charlie Drake and mod-ified music from 60s pop Singapore! - both these sites often include the cover art too. The Torture Garden (love it) and Feed me Good Tunes are more contemporary.
Jason Freeman had a problem: "People often ask me what music I listen to, and I find it difficult to describe my enormous music collection in just a few sentences." Luckily he is a programmer. I've given his solution iTunes Signature Maker a spin. This samples and mixes a sound file from segments of your favourite music on your computer. What for?
Maybe it will help you gauge your compatibility with your next blind date: "She seems nice enough, but her iTunes signature is just so atonal! Should I go with my heart or with my ear?" Or maybe an iTunes signature will figure prominently into a political attack ad: "If you're mad at him for raising your taxes, polluting our environment, and cutting the education budget, just wait until you hear the music he listens to…"Here's mine: short iTunes signature; long iTunes signature. Can you identify the twenty songs? It's the same songs in both samples. (Also in WAV format if you can't do MP4: short iTunes signature; long iTunes signature.) ω 8:25:00 AM.
Programmable computing devices
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Backpack for your mobile.GeekBrief TV is a tech news podcast presented by "Cali Lewis". She's cute and informative.
The Amiga is back! This article is old and a bit of a tease but brings us more-or-less up-to-date with the Amiga computer. For more info see amiga.org, amigaweb.net, amigaos.dk, wiki.aminet.net, www.amigafuture.de, www.amiga-hardware.com... in these days of Mac and Windows it might seem an anachronism but imagine how its virtual memory multitasking OS would fly on modern hardware.
For both Mac and Windows: Subway maps for your iPod. Or for webmasters, how about a portable CSS guide: just copy the westciv Style Master CSS podGuide to the Notes folder on your iPod.
Rather than packing an obliterator ray in your holiday luggage, you can remove unsightly people from your snaps with Tourist Remover, a free online photo tool.
PC myths: IBM's BIOS.
macbillboard has smashing desktop wallpaper, especially some beautiful isometric artwork.
Get free PowerPoint templates from A PowerPoint Blog.
Persuasive game: Disaffected! sounds a bit depressing to me. It puts the player in the role of a copy shop employee.
Disaffected! gives the player the chance to step into the demotivated position of real FedEx Kinkos employees. Feel the indifference of these purple-shirted malcontents first-hand, and consider the possible reasons behind their malaise -- is it mere incompetence? Managerial affliction?For Mac only: free games. Actually, most games are free for people like me who seldom get to level 3, thanks to demo mode. macgamefiles.com
David Weiss works at Microsoft as a software design engineer in the Mac Business Unit. A programmer, in other words?
todo.txt is a way of maintaining a to do list with text and scripts from the command line, on Unix or Mac OS X.
Julian Wright is doing superb work on mobile.feisar.com to make sure iSync works with all the latest Sony Ericsson mobile phones via Bluetooth and he also provides icons and themes. Makes me wanna trade-in my old Alcatel.
Mac Webdesign Workflow recommends some great software for making web sites - will he ever use Dreamweaver? Oh, the tension.
For all you presentation fiends, Les Posen's CyberPsych Blog is strong on Keynote. Al Gore and Steve Jobs do not use PowerPoint!
Hello Mac - the lost 1984 video clip collection. Steve Jobs spoke faster then.
I reboot my Mac at home every five or six weeks, when Apple sends me a system upgrade, otherwise I would never need to. Windows machines, on the other hand, need frequent rebooting. Crash Test.
The workaround is to reboot them periodically, and savvy Windows sysadmins typically do this as a matter of routine every month. If they fail to do this, their servers will progressively slow down, choking on their own detritus. Eventually, after a tad under 50 days, they'll automatically shut down, even if they're managing one of the most safety-critical tasks in the world.Announcing the Apple iProduct. The riposte: Apple Haters Unite!
Dashboard Widgets Showcase.
Take a virtual tour around Apple Store Fifth Avenue.
Realize your strange ideas and creative desires with Apple's iLife Tutorials for iPhoto, iMovie HD, Garageband, iTunes, iDVD and iWeb.
Naughty. HandBrake copies DVD films to iPod or PSP format. Update thanks to Technorati Profile I know this now called MediaFork.
A new use for old Macs: MacQuarium.
Hrmpf! is a good Apple blog.
295 different Apple Mail icons. I use the Boris Karloff icon.
I have dreams about taking this to concerts. iTalk is a high quality stereo microphone for the iPod. In the seventies I took a big cassette recorder with me to lots of concerts and no-one seemed to mind. It's tremendously evocative listening to Hawkwind occasionally filtered by the unique acoustics of the toilets in the Hammersmith Odeon.
Labels: Apple, computing, links, Macintosh
ω 8:58:00 PM.books... mostly sf
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Elastic Press have published many of my friend Allen's books, including The Elastic Book of Numbers which has just won a BFS award, and on Saturday 4th November they have a special event to launch a new anthology with a musical theme Extended Play, edited by Gary Couzens, with an introduction by Jean-Jacques Burnel. The event features live performances from Lene Lovich, Tall Poppies and Ciccone. Ten quid for three bands and ten authors!
Another old schoolchum Nick Papadimitriou has an essay in the new book London: City of Disappearances
edited by Iain Sinclair.VISCO is the Visual Index of Science Fiction Cover Art with some good articles on various sf, fantasy, weird and horror fiction magazines. Another way to explore the cover art from VISCO is SF Cover Explorer, by Jim Bumgardner, of krazydad.com, a great programmer I met on Flickr.
I'm a member of the Penguin Paperback Spotters' Guild group on Flickr, devoted to the art and design of Penguin book covers. See also Penguin books at the Design Museum.
The University of Otago's online exhibition Straight Jackets notes that "the general neglect of book jackets has resulted in a scarcity of early examples".
Of course we would not have these fascinating images and great reads if it were not for physical books, a medium that will survive this digital age as explained in Chris Mitchell's review of Double Fold in Spike magazine. (What's coming after digital? Analogue again, probably.)
Bookshops: Fantastic Literature. They have a nice email newsletter in which old duffers like me try to remember the titles of sf stories they read as youths. For more general than genre titles, also available by the yard, try Any Amount of Books on Charing Cross Road. I've been to the shop and climbed to high shelves many times. Download their enormous catalogue and read their news and trivia. Another good source is AntiQbooks.
For real sf nuts (remember Skyrack?) eFanzines are obviously fanzines online, in web or PDF format. A labour of love. Or here's a more professional magazine from the US: Locus. I keep up-to-date with science fiction with Ansible's estimable email newsletter. Sf fandom invented words like fandom and fen - the plural of fan. trufen.net is stuff for fans.
Download free science fiction books!
Why not catalog your books online in a big library thing? I did this on paper once, thirty-five years ago (no laughing please) and I can see that online you won't get the benefit of my lovely handwriting and doodles. Anyway, here's the entry for Olaf Stapledon.
Buy me a book for Christmas! Or better still, buy Elemental a short story anthology to raise funds for tsunami disaster relief with contributions by big name authors Brian W. Aldiss, David Gerrold and Larry Niven inter alia.
"We contacted Sir Arthur C. Clarke," said Kontis.If you're thinking of using Writely instead of Nisus or Word or whatever to write, then head for Google Docs. Authors can collaborate online! There is a revision history and word count. Documents can be saved in plain, HTML, RTF, Word, PDF and OpenOffice formats.
Clarke, the author of "2001: A Space Odyssey" among many other great works, lives in Sri Lanka and was directly affected by the disaster.
Savile assured the author that they were not asking him for a short story — because of his age and poor health, Clarke does not write much, if at all, anymore.
"We asked him to write the foreword," Savile said. "Within 24 hours, we heard back from him, and within another 24 hours, we had the foreword."
Aspiring writers sometimes ask published authors which pen they use... The Write Stuff. And mind your apostrophes!
Book reviews are always to be found at The New Statesman, like this review of So Now Who Do We Vote For? by Suzanne Moore or a review of A Woman in Berlin by J. G. Ballard.
Literary blogs: many are linked to in the excellent This Space.
Labels: books, links, rave, sf
ω 7:48:00 PM.More Miscellany
Friday, October 13, 2006
Some old links that I meant to blog in 2004: these ones are still online:
Craigley Heath! This interview with Josie Lawrence with Danny Baker (from his old breakfast show on BBC Radio London), Amy Lamé and Mark O'Donnell is still there and well worth a listen. Is it life-changing? perhaps. (Real Player required) It includes an encounter with a stage-door Jenny and a priceless clip of Alec Guinness at his most misanthropic in response to a Star Wars fan. If you enjoy this sort of thing, then Danny Baker now has a show in the afternoon and the last five days are online.
The Skewed Worldview of Lubin Odana is a blog I'll be adding to the links on the side of this page. He's a bit crazy and we like the same horror films.
The Modern Antiquarian is a resource for ancient sites in the UK and Ireland, such as Avebury and Stonehenge.
The Search for the Spider Pool (NSFW) is definitely not safe for work. The beautiful location for many 1950s nude photos still has its secrets.
Dialectical sex and gender: Cunnilingus in North Korea. Interesting comments - good music too! Strangely this may be safe for work. It may be.
The dark side of Mary Poppins.
Dennis Wheatley wrote A Letter to Posterity which is linked to in this BBC feature. "Your life does not matter, but your freedom does."
Michael Moorcock's Miscellany is back up after a hacking attack. Still as difficult to navigate as ever, but worth it to keep up to date with the great man's words.
Roberts Radio Ltd. website has an interesting history section.
A reporter tries to find some good in the armpit of America.
Stream of unconsciousness: conversing with Denny's patrons. Denny's is a cafe chain in the US selling fatty sugary food - like MacDonald's but for breakfast.
Worst album covers ever including a link to ten more ghastly images.
The Human Design System seems as bad as Scientology. I wonder why people go for this stuff. HDS is supposed to draw "from science and esoteric wisdom" but no pointer is given to either.
The Hillman Imp as driven by the Man in a Suitcase. ω 9:03:00 AM.
Scary songs
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Huge comment thread on Jarvis Cocker's appeal for memories of unintentionally Scary Songs to which I have contributed Rolf Harris's 'Jake the Peg'. Rolf's performance on Blue Peter with three legs protruding from his long coat greatly alarmed me as a child.
Plastic Fantastic lists the Guardian's Laura Barton's favourite independent record shops; readers supply the rest of the record shops in the UK.
The Stranglers and the Finchley Boys - a three part article - were not as violent as they were often painted! I remember them from the Hope and Anchor in Islington and an Damned/Eater gig at my Finchley school in 1977. The poor old teacher who was supposed to be controlling this event was very circumspect, if not largely absent, during the festivities once this lot turned up mob-handed.
Stylus Magazine all about music, not cuneiform.
Shindig! magazine reviews the four CD boxset of the complete works of Fanny: First Time In A Long Time. I love Fanny - no really, I've got two of their albums on vinyl.
Lemmy is a charming fellow - I've shaken his hand twice at Hawkwind gigs - and he was the son of a vicar, after all. What Lemmy gets up to at home is his own business:
Then my solicitor sent them a letter saying, 'We are appalled by this accusation. Miss Wilson was not tied to the bed: she was hanging from the ceiling.' They didn't reply.
Two years ago Andrew Orlowski wrote about How the music biz can live forever, get even richer, and be loved.
The Perfumed Garden has many John Peel sessions in MP3 form, whereas John Peel Every Day is more keen on BitTorrent.
Funtopia is Mick Farren's weblog.
Greg Shaw obituary. He was a pivotal figure in the US music scene.
The Stop Ashlee Simpson Petition.
Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise is a weblog that mostly covers music.
Wendy James: The Racine World.
PSF is Perfect Sound Forever magazine. The Vinyl Anachronist: Part L: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the iPod.
Mike Patto was in 60s group Timebox.
Freeway Jam is a very cool music weblog. Hope they start updating again. There are also cool musicians who blog, it says here.
Extensive John Cale website: Fear is a Man's Best Friend. You remember - he was the cool one from the Velvet Underground. That's three cools. Some people say Lou Reed was the cool one. Not me.
Similarly extensive is the Kiki Dee Information Bureau - enough to fill a DVD! The timeline is worth exploring for the beautiful images of old fashions and record designs.
Martin Guy's Delia Derbyshire - An audiological chronology.
The Spirit of the Page site devoted to Robert Calvert has been relaunched to better reflect the zeitgeist.
Sean's Alexis Korner Discography. Did Alexis ever make a bad record? If so I haven't heard it.
LOL! Lol Coxhill's site features an interview with Buck Funk.
Julian Cope presents Head Heritage Unsung which reviews forgotten albums. On Julian's features there are MP3 streams too.
Amazing Doctor Who tributes discography - many memories! This is part of a bigger website as is the music from Danger Man, with cover scans and MP3 files.
Bad science: alternative therapy fans are like hi-fi freaks.
Independent music: There's a musical revolution going on. ω 4:16:00 AM.
Skin of the Moon
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
I was fortunate to catch this show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. I bought the t-shirt just because I liked the Voodoo Vaudeville artwork and the woman who sold it to me recommended Skin of the Moon as very funny and "random" - well, I loved it. It all made perfect sense to me being a gentleman of a certain age; anyone who can dance the Timewarp and likes vampires, time machines and St. Trinians will love it too.
While queuing for the aptly-named Wildman Room, the Evil Master himself appeared before us in full makeup - I did a double take. (I felt sheepish to have been shocked, since I once shocked people in Canterbury when I wore a Robot of Death costume from Doctor Who.)
The beginning of the preformance in the darkened theatre was weird and scary and I hoped Espe would not run out screaming. Luckily we were in the back row behind two burly chaps which meant we did not share the fate of those foolish enough to sit in the front row.
Chris Cresswell has a sure comic touch and works well with Colin who is probably a woman. He has assembled a fine company and they should be given their own TV channel.
A highlight of the show is the 'notorious puppet oracle' Baby Warhol - have a question ready. I thought of a really good one the next day. Oh yes, and they played a bit of a Hawkwind song too so that's most of my buttons pushed.
If you are going to Edinburgh you must see this! *****
And the bar upstairs is still open after midnight, what more can one ask.
Voodoo Vaudeville.
(This text is also on my Flickr Stream with the tags: "Voodoo Vaudeville" "Chris Cresswell" burlesque weird wacky sexy saucy kinky twisted cabaret spanking vaudeville theatre comedy wicked puppet maid apeman dominatrices Warhol charming outrageous witty surreal romp "Edinburgh Festival" Fringe Edinburgh Hawkwind "time machine".) ω 1:30:00 PM.
Save Water!
Friday, May 19, 2006
The Mayor of London floats his solution to England's drought: Ken Livingstone says "if it's yellow, let it mellow".
Call this a drought?
Plants love it, says Ken.
Conserve water.
Water Company Hypocrisy! or is it? Unfortunate, more like.
No drought order yet. Phew.
I've made a poster to celebrate Ken's advice. To print it in various sizes, get over to Flickr by clicking on the picture then find the 'All Sizes' button. You'll need a recent version of Flash. Please print it and post it inside the door of the nearest thunderbox.
Update: It's August and the water is holding out. July's heatwave is fading away. The water companies are using emergency supplies. The government is talking about a national grid for water. We've had a few downpours but they have been the "wrong sort of rain": storms that mostly run off into the sea rather than wet weeks, so Ken's advice still holds!
Update: 1st November and the temperature in London drops below 10ºC for the first time this autumn. The trees are still green.
Labels: environment, links
ω 1:44:00 PM.A Literary Quiz for Easter
Saturday, April 15, 2006
This Eastertide my task for you is simple: match the opening paragraphs with the six books and give your answers in the comments in the form 1A 2B etc. (If you enjoy this, here's another one I did earlier.) Cheers!Book 1: Louisa M. Alcott: Little Women (1868)
Book 2: R. D. Blackmore: Lorna Doone
Book 3: John Bunyan: The Pilgrim's Progress (1678)
Book 4: Alexandre Dumas: The Three Musketeers
Book 5: Charles Lamb: The Essays of Elia
Book 6: Charles Reade: The Cloister and the Hearth
Excerpt A:
As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den; and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the book and read therein; and as he read he wept and trembled: and, not being able longer to contain he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying, What shall I do?
Excerpt B:
"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.
"It's so dreadful to be poor!" sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.
"I don't think it's fair for some girls to have lots of pretty things and other girls nothing at all," added little Amy, with an injured sniff.
"We've got father and mother, and each other, anyhow," said Beth, contentedly, from her corner.
The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly --
"We haven't got father, and shall not have him for a long time." She didn't say "perhaps never" but each silently added it, thinking of father far away, where the fighting was.
Excerpt C:
If anybody cares to read a simple tale told simply, I, John Ridd, of the parish of Oare, in the county of Somerset, yeoman and churchwarden, have seen and had a share in some doings of this neighbourhood, which I will try to set down in order, God sparing my life and memory. And they who light upon this book should bear in mind, not only that I write for the clearing of our parish from ill-fame and calumny, but also a thing which will, I trow, appear too often in it, to wit -- that I am nothing more than a plain unlettered man, not read in foreign languages, as a gentleman might be, nor gifted with long words (even in mine own tongue) save what I may have won from the Bible, or Master William Shakespeare, whom, in the face of common opinion, I do value highly. In short, I am an ignoramus, but pretty well for a yeoman.
Excerpt D:
Not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows. Of these obscure heroes, philosophers, and martyrs, the greater part will never be known till that hour, when many that are great shall be small, and the small great; but of others the world's knowledge may be said to sleep: their lives and characters lie hidden from nations in the annals that record them. The general reader cannot feel them, they are presented so curtly and coldly: they are not like breathing stories appealing to his heart, but little historic hail-stones striking him but to glance off his bosom: nor can he understand them; for epitomes are not narratives, as skeletons are not human figures.
Excerpt E:
On the first Monday of the month of April 1625, the bourg of Meung, in which the author of the Romance of the Rose was born, appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second Rochelle of it. Many citizens, seeing the women flying towards the street, leaving their children crying at the open doors, hastened to don the cuirass, and supporting their somewhat uncertain courage with a musket or a partisan, directed their steps towards the hostelry of the Jolly Miller, before which was gathered, increasing every minute, a compact group, vociferous and full of curiosity.
Excerpt F:
Reader, in thy passage from the Bank -- where thou hast been receiving thy half-yearly dividends (supposing thou art a lean annultant like myself) -- to the Flower Pot, to secure a place for Dalston, or Shacklewell or some other thy suburban retreat northerly -- didst thou never observe a melancholy-looking, handsome, brick and stone edifice, to the left, where Threadneedle Street abuts upon Bishopsgate? I dare say one hast often admired its magnificent portals ever gaping wide, and disclosing to view a grave court, with cloisters and pillars, with few or no traces of goers-in or comers-out -- a desolation something like Balclutha's.ω 6:14:00 AM.
Bye bye, Ivor
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Comic genius Ivor Cutler died on Friday. John Junkin died today. Oh no, and Linda Smith has gone too.
Ivor's sessions on the John Peel show were a joy. His honesty and economy of language remain refreshing, as does his careful pronunciation. I would always be there with my cassette recorder, possibly missing a night in the pub to catch his latest radio session in the 1970s. I knew where he lived in Camden Town but I never visited.
On my desk is a plastic bird on a spring, labelled with dymo: 'Fremsley' named after one of his poems.
Ivor's entry on Wikipedia is a bit thin. That will probably change in a few days. (Update: it did.)
Ivor on Flickr: the beautiful kindnesses. ω 3:57:00 PM.
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